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Rowboater
128

Rowboater 128

Hoping to get out before the weather turned colder, headed to the freshwater creek; the water was still high and extremely cold. I was surprised when I reached "my" cowhark teeth spot to discover that someone have shoveled deep into the creek bank leaving a gaping hole; not sure if they hauled the sand, dirt and gravel away or if they just dumped in in the creek to separate stuff in the abundant flowing water. I scratched around anyway and found stuff (like always) but no cowshark and no big teeth, only a few angel shark teeth and drum teeth. There were lots of small broken ecphora laying around in the creekbed; found one nicer one though missing it's tail-tip. A few small coral clumps, an interesting oblong vert, and tiny teeth, many with cusps. I became tired of sifting with no striking rewards, so I picked up some shells which I usually avoid (they often don't survive the trip home); will post on the ID section since I'm curious what they are. Guess I''l have to find some new spots.

Sometimes, it takes reminding that some people cannot easily find fossils of any type nearby to them.

These are all pretty cool, in my book.

Thanks for the empathy! Usually it is rip rap dumped on the beach to stop erosion (sometimes contributed to by collectors digging; one here had a power water pump and hose that he destroyed many cliff banks with and stopped the collecting at the same time!) If kids, they would have surely dumped their diggings in the creek and the smaller stuff would have escaped downstream. If adults, I'm guessing they left with at least ten five-gallon buckets full. Maybe for kids to sort through; nothing there is super valuable (and I wouldn't carry a full five gallon bucket of dirt, it's a long walk for me). Was getting lazy anyway. The creek has been picked over for 50 years, i'll just start digging in some other spots.

Here is my ecphora (about 2 inches cubed). Possibly they found a bunch of them? There's always some small broken ones in that spot. Or were.

I'm sorry for the damage to your hunting spot. Still, you got some nice finds, and the ecphora is beautiful!

14 hours ago, ynot said:

Nice finds for a dug out spot.

Hope Your next site produces better and more.

Thanks everyone! I see pieces of ecphora which were much bigger; they are fragile and the kids tend to be rough getting shells out of their way. That's the biggest near intact one I've found this year. Miserably cold here for another day, possibly try the beach tomorrow.

I may haul out the vertebrae I've found and see if anyone knows what they came from. Cetacean vertebrae used to be common and too heavy to haul out, but now are all gone. The smaller ones come in many shapes and sizes.